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How to Keep Content Creative

Bottom of the Barrel?

Every blogger has been there at one time or another. Sitting at a computer, staring at the screen, without a clue of what to write about. Some weeks the creative juices are flowing and the article practically writes itself! Other weeks there’s just nothing; no spark of genius, no creative title, no motivation at all. It’s those weeks you manage to squeak out a mediocre blog that you rather wouldn’t associate with your name, but post it anyway for the sake of posting content.

The biggest question you can ask yourself when experiencing a major writer’s block isn’t “what should I write about this week”, but rather “how can I prevent this from happening again?”

How to Fix It

Stay up to date with current events going on in your industry. Is something big happening? Write about it! Put your spin on it. Is it a scandal? Everyone loves a good scandal. Write about what you would do to have avoided it, or how you would fix it. Is it a new product? Test it out and tell your readers about your experiences with it. If you have established yourself as a person of authority with your blog, your readers will respect your opinion and trust your judgment. Or, they will disagree and it will get your readers to interact with you.

Find some other blogs in your industry that you enjoy reading. Often times, reading the ideas of another person will help you understand things in a different way, and can give you new ideas to work off of. Even if you don’t come up with new ideas by reading other blogs, it wasn’t a waste of time. Reading what other people think and feel about a certain topic will expand your knowledge base.

Feeling adventurous? Take a different approach to your blog post. A blog isn’t confined to the written language. Try making a visual blog post with a video, slideshow, or graphic. The brain processes visuals 60,000X times faster than text, which means any information you relay in a visual will be better communicated to your readers. It also will help you communicate more value, quicker to the reader skimming through your blog. (1)

If you have time in your busy schedule, write some ‘evergreen’ blog posts. Just like evergreen trees are always green, these blog posts would always be applicable. The topic couldn’t be a news article, as that would be considered timely content and posting about it six months later would be too after the fact. These evergreen posts would be good for weeks that you are really struggling for content; you would already have a post written from a previous, more creative time.

If you’re feeling really stuck, change your frame of mind. Go for a walk, even if it’s just around the office, and observe things. You never know what will spark your creativity, chances are it’s something you see every day but never actually ‘see’. For example, take the coffee machine. It’s a vital part of your morning routine, most likely done without thinking. Try doing an experiment: a morning with coffee vs. a morning without. Does coffee really help get you going in the morning or is that just a belief everyone follows to make mornings better? Although a coffee experiment might not exactly pertain to your industry, it will give your readers a chance to get to know you on a more personal level.

Don’t Forget

Blogging can be as creative or as fact-based as you want it to be. If you can’t find inspiration in your industry, there are many other ways to find it. Inspiration is often hiding in the most unlikely place, you just have to go out and look.